


stop (white roses)

by typhe



Series: Thorns [1]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Flowers, Forgiveness, LHM, M/M, Monologue, unavailable undead boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Post-canon.) Stef plays to his strengths, even in war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stop (white roses)

**Author's Note:**

> Titled, in part, for a song by the 3 Daft Monkeys: _Do you think gods hang round in bars and compare armies that they've got?_

Performance is half planning and half execution, always.

It's simple discipline. Choose your moment. Choose your audience. Rehearse; script all your lines in advance, memorise, learn your delivery, be prepared to ad lib. I've been at it for days, staring at the insides of my own eyelids from horseback, arranging arguments like stepping stones. I need to do this. _Someone_ has to, and I've spent five years gradually realising that no one else will or can.

My moment; almost midnight. My audience; the Lord-Marshal, Rosha who heads the field-Heralds, Cathany who acts as the Border battle-commander, and Treven, plus all of their respective aides and deputies. It's a hell of a half of a Council, huddled beside a fire over a map held down by stones and strewn by rain-spattered charcoal marks. These are hard years and an easy challenge would not sway these men, or any others. I wasn't looking for easy. This might be the second hardest act of my life and if it works, my next will be the hardest.

Tough crowd. I'm sure I've killed fewer people than any of them and the only one younger than me is Treven, and you sure wouldn't know it to watch him. He's used years like a whetstone, sharper and more dangerous with each one that passes. Thirty-one years old, mind like the edge of a hooked knife and a bitter, determined army behind him. I should have talked to him alone - he's my friend, and he would have listened, but if I say my piece before the Council, not a friendly offer but a strategic demand, he'll respect it that much more. I know it.

It _is_ a Council, and the king's hand is over his seal of office, palm-down in the dry grass. Councils-of-war have few comforts. Treven's close to the fire, kneeling on a bit of sackcloth. He accepts scantly more coddling than the least of his soldiers. He's watching the Lord-Marshall's hands playing over the map, sketching new information. There's a long nail pinning it to the earth, two inches back from the hazy borderline; it marks our camp's position. They say we're five miles from hell and I _don't believe it_ , wouldn't be here if I did.

Herald Cathany holds the floor. "I trust the line to hold from here to Echoford. Further east, I couldn't say."

"And if the east line gives they'll have access to White Foal pass -" This is Treven's 'tell me the worst' face. He'll always lay out every terrifying detail before outlining a plan.

"Unless we can keep them on the other side of the river. If we had mages -"

That wasn't my cue, but I'd never let it stand. "We'll survive without mages. We don't have a choice. Think about the Gifts we _do_ have."

Treven nods his agreement. We truly don't have a choice; even mercenary mages won't cross our borders any more, and I _know_ , I'll tell anyone who'll listen, that the protection the Herald-Mages left behind means we can live without them. But it seems some people put more faith in fire than in shadows. "We can't use attack plans from twenty years ago, and nor can we hold as we are."

Rosha's always been one of my supporters on the Council, which makes what I'm about to do to him all the less excusable. "Indeed. Play to our strengths. We've got used to defending ourselves without magic but our offensive plans are still timid, and we'd do better to go forward than back at this point -" An ongoing argument about overextending our forces passes between five sets of eyes. I'm past caring. "We could push forward into Valome. Take revenge for what happened at Kettingway -"

And _there's_ my cue, all the more hateful for its predictability. "Put it like that and we all lose. Gods, are we even thinking on what our strengths truly _are_?"

It's absolutely forbidden to exercise a mind-gift to influence the Council. But I'll use everything else. Everything I know about metre and timing. Everything I know about these people and how their minds work and where to look for leverage. Anything else I've got.

I've got their attention, for now.

"Stealing back land means nothing to us. This -" I gesture at the map with one foot, "- is not why we're here. We've not fought all these years over dirt - that's what _they've_ done, you keep on saying, you keep on calling them bandits and fanatics and saying that we've got _more_ than that. More than land and forges and weapons and men we can press into arms. We're not made of blood and earth. Our strengths are in mind-gifts, stories and most of all our principles - but what _are_ they?"

I don't let it hang long enough to be more than rhetorical. "We could sit here and list our many virtues but I think we would agree that the greatest of them is our compassion for others. And if we keep on chasing revenge for the Kettingway fiasco, then victorious or no we're going to lose what we treasure most." Cathany tried to interrupt but I raised a hand. "Please ask yourself, Cathany. What's the most you could do for what we believe in? How far would you go, not for _revenge_ but for what's right and good?

"I've been thinking a lot lately about what this war has cost us. We've all suffered. We've all lost people we loved and needed. We valued those lives and to try to fill their loss with revenge, with more slaughter -" I shook my head slowly. "That's weakness, and it won't win a war. I want to see what we can do if we play to our strengths - and I've looked into my own heart for the greatest strength I'm capable of, and I've asked myself what I would -" I pause, breathe, feel every eye upon me, start the clause over, "What I would do if a man walked up to this fire and told me that it was he who killed my lifebonded.

"I would have to say 'I forgive you.'"

I knew all hell would break loose after that one but not even Treven can talk over me now. "Listen. I know - _listen_. I know it's easier for me. I could look that man in the eye and make him understand what he had done to me, and to everyone who ever knew my bondmate. I'm a gifted bard and sharing my heart with others is one of the two things I was put in this world to do. The other is healing pain. Forgiveness is my only reasonable strategy.

"We've been fighting this war as if such god-given things were weak points, but they _are_ my strengths, and they're part of what will bring us victory. And I don't mean revenge, I mean _peace_. I can walk across that border -" I reach down and rub my thumb across it, smearing a few miles of it away "- show them what this war has cost all of us, and win us a peace. I can do it. I know I can."

Well, this time I can't quiet the hubbub - only pick my moment to steal the floor again, which is the first time any of them address me directly; the Lord-Marshal, staring at me as if I'd thrown his map into the flames. "Stefen, you think we should _negotiate_ \- ?"

"If we believe in ourselves at all, yes. How else are we ever going to _end_ this?"

"They'll kill you -"

"I'd risk that. And if it comes to that I'll make sure it hurts them as much as it hurts me." I'm lying, I'm not allowed to die, I've tried enough, but if it were possible then I'd mean what I say.

I turn to Treven, who's saying nothing but the look in his eyes says he'll let me do it. I know he will. We need a way out of this and I am offering him the only clean cut, the only risk worth taking. I raise my brows, wanting at least a word from him and he gives me one; "Adjourned."

"Good night," I reply, getting to my feet, listening to them as I return to my tent. That went well; there's fewer of them quietly cursing the day I was born than I expected. I'm sure the accusations of cowardice and treachery will come later. For now the detractors are just saying I'm a fool, or I've learned nothing in all my years on the border, or I've finally gone mad.

I hear the Lord-Marshal's deputy whisper that Vanyel wouldn't have done it.

You gods-damned fool, Vanyel _couldn't_ have done it. The powers of destruction he held were a horror upon the Karsites, and they would never have made any deal with him that didn't involve his severed head. This peace wasn't part of his story for all he wanted it. That's why he needed me.

That's why you need me.

That's why you need me to do to them what I just did to you. Open my heart, and wage peace with all my strength. And if you believe in yourself at all, you'll be with me.

*

"Where did _that_ come from?"

Treven is incredibly hard to lie to, even for me, so I generally don't bother. "I found it in my tent this morning." Our eyes meet, and I am sure he's assessing the reasonable explanation, which is that it was a prank on the part of one of my comrades - a first insult of many. Unlikely. This scorched earth isn't known for its market gardens. He can believe what he wants to.

All I know is that I woke up and found a single white rose lying beside me, damp with dew.

The thorns were still on it; I took them off with my knife, swept them into my pocket and put the flower in the latch of my cloak. I hope the Karsites appreciate it.


End file.
